Latest opinion polls: Don't panic, Captain Cameron

First five polls of the evening confirm that the Lib Dems got a huge bounce from the Clegg Factor – including two poll that have them as the front-runners. A Sunday People/OnePoll survey has the Conservatives on 27 per cent, Labour on 23 per cent and the Lib Dems on 33 per cent, while a Mail on Sunday/BPIX poll has the Tories on 31 per cent (-7), Labour on 28 per cent (-3) and the Lib Dems on 32 per cent (+12). Not quite as sensationally, a Sunday Mirror/Independent on Sunday/ComRes poll has the Conservatives on 31 per cent (-4), Labour on 27 per cent (-2) and the Lib Dems on 29 per cent (+8), while a Sunday Telegraph/ICM poll has the Tories on 34 per cent (-3), Labour on 29 per cent (-2) and the Lib Dems on 27 per cent (+7). The most sober is the latest YouGov tracker for tomorrow's Sunday Times which has the Conservatives on 33 per cent (nc), Labour on 30 per cent (+2) and the Lib Dems on 29 per cent (-1).

Should David Cameron lock himself in a dark room with a bottle of whisky and a revolver? Yes, if you plug these results into a UNS seat calculator, as I blogged about earlier. But if you take a more sophisticated approach to analysing how the Lib Dem surge might affect the election result, the outlook isn't as bleak. According to the tmg.co.uk/anthonypainter.co.uk seat predictor, developed by an enterprising blogger called Anthony Painter, Cameron would still only be three seats short of a majority. He has the Tories on 323, Labour on 227 and the Lib Dems on 65. His conclusion is as follows — and, remember, he is a Labour blogger:

Interestingly, it seems that the Lib Dems have been taking more support from the Tories but it is Labour that is being hit in terms of seats. This is precisely the opposite of what universal swing calculators based on the national share of the vote are showing.